Golden Owl Awards 2018 – Review and Winners

What are the Golden Owl Awards 2018?

The Golden Owl Awards 2018 is an exciting filmmaking competition that is part of the Leeds Young Film Festival. The awards celebrate the talents of young filmmakers aged 19 and under. In addition the Oscars style red carpet, black tie extravaganza is attended by celebrities and local dignitaries who present the Owls. Futhermore this year the event was hosted by yours truly on the 27th March at Leeds Town Hall.

The competition is supported by Leeds City Council through the Leeds Young Film Network, ArtForms and Leeds Young Film Festival in partnership with Vista. It reflects the Council’s vision for Leeds as a Child Friendly City described in the Children and Young People’s Plan 2015-2019 and helps to meet several of its priorities.

What kind of films were they looking for?

Films submitted to the Golden Owl Awards 2018 were of any genre or type including comedy, horror, drama, animation or documentary. As a result his included music, skate and promo videos. For schools and colleges, submissions included films produced in lesson time or as extracurricular activity. And some were made as part of a project, for fun or as a specific commission.

How was the ceremony?

I throughly enjoyed being part of this event. From taking photos with characters from Star Wars before the ceremony, to meeting the winners and their families afterwards. The whole experience was lovely. It was great to see how creative and passionate the entrants were. And I was genuinely in awe at how young some of the talent was. To be making short films at 5yrs old in incredible.

I don’t know about anybody else, but there was a definite highlight of the evening. It was taking a few minutes to have a boogie to the sounds of the Leeds Youth Jazz Rock Orchestra. The video at the bottom of this page says it all. Hopefully they’ll ask me back to do it all again next year. For more events that I’ve been involved in make sure you check out my Blog.